See Me(57)

His classmates either didn’t notice or didn’t care about his dress, and he listened and took notes as always. No Serena afterward, as they only had classes together on Mondays and Wednesdays. With a few extra minutes, he called the florist and ordered an autumn bouquet, whatever the hell that was. From there he trudged off to a classroom-management class, aware that he hadn’t stopped moving since the alarm had gone off, his regular routine in tatters.

His final class of the day ended at a quarter to noon. By then, the sun was high, and with Indian summer hanging on, he walked slowly to his car, trying not to sweat. He stopped at the florist on the way to the address Maria had given him, and as if fate was toying with him, it took two turns of the key and a bit of pedal pumping to get the engine going. All he could do was keep his fingers crossed.

Martenson, Hertzberg & Holdman occupied its own building, a relatively modern structure a couple of blocks from the Cape Fear River and smack-dab in the middle of the historic district, with parking on both sides of the building. On either side and across the street, the buildings ran together, one shade of brick giving way to another, storefronts dotted with awnings. He pulled into a spot only a few slots away from Maria’s car, and next to a shiny red Corvette.

He grabbed the vase of flowers – remembering Lily and her phrase certain expectations – and then thought about Ken and the problems he was causing. He wondered if the guy would be around; he wanted to put a face to a name. As he locked his car, he suddenly saw the entire morning as a countdown to the time when he could finally see Maria again.

Surprising no one more than himself, he realized that he’d missed her.





CHAPTER 10





Maria





W

ith Barney holed up in his office, readying himself for trial, Maria was on double duty. She spent the morning touching base with clients, doing her best to ensure that each one felt their case was still a priority. Every half hour or so, their paralegal, Lynn, would enter with even more documents or forms to be filed, and though it was all Maria could do to keep up, staying busy had the benefit of keeping her from fretting about her lunch date. Or, more accurately, how her parents were going to react when they met Colin. For starters – and unlike Luis – Colin was a gringo, and while it wasn’t that big of a deal for people in her generation, her parents were probably going to be surprised. Allowing them to meet Colin meant the relationship was getting serious, and they’d probably always assumed Maria would only seriously date someone who was Mexican. Everyone in her family – even relatives by marriage – was Mexican, and there were cultural differences. Her family celebrated every family get-together with a pi?ata for the kids, listened to mariachi music, watched telenovelas obsessively, and spoke only Spanish among themselves. Some of her aunts and uncles spoke no English at all. She knew it wouldn’t necessarily be a problem for her parents, but they’d probably wonder why Maria hadn’t mentioned Colin’s background. The rest of her family’s opinions about it would probably fall along generational lines, with the younger relatives more likely to shrug off the idea as inconsequential. Still, she had no doubt that it was going to be a topic of conversation among the family at the restaurant, one that would probably continue long after Maria and Colin said good-bye.

Those things she could deal with. What she wasn’t sure she could handle was any discussion concerning Colin’s past, which she knew was unavoidable. Ordinary conversation ensured it, and what was going to happen if either her mom or her dad started asking him questions today? She supposed she could head off the answers by stating that they were simply friends and steering the conversation in another direction, but how long could she keep that up? Unless their relationship petered out after Saturday – and Maria admitted that she hoped it wouldn’t – Colin’s past was going to come up. And what had Serena said about that? I don’t even want to be in the same state when you drop that little bombshell. To her parents, it wouldn’t matter that she was a grown woman; they’d make their displeasure known, assuring themselves that they were doing the right thing, since it was obvious that Maria had no idea what she was getting herself into.

And the crazy thing was, her parents were probably right.





“You have a visitor,” Jill said.

Maria was hanging up with Gwen, the receptionist, who’d just shared the same information when Jill appeared in her doorway, a handbag already over her shoulder.

“I just heard,” she answered, noting that it was a quarter past twelve. “I don’t know where the morning went. It feels like I just got here.”

Jill smiled. “I take it that you and Colin are going out?”

“Yeah, about that,” Maria said. “I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you earlier that I had plans, but I’ve been slammed all morning. I barely had a second to breathe.”

“No worries,” Jill said, waving it off. “I remember the whole work-till-you-drop drill when Barney’s getting ready for trial. Actually, I was coming by to tell you that I was planning to surprise Paul at his office and make him take me out.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Not about lunch. But I do wish you had warned me that Colin was coming by. I would have had Paul come by here, too, so he could see for himself what eating right and working out will do for a man.”